The Time I Met a Blogger

It’s no secret that I love talking to y’all on my blog. It seems like one out of every eight posts I do is about blogging in some form, and that’s because it has become a big part of my life and something that I get a lot of gratification from. The World of Blog keeps revealing itself to me and I love it more fervently with each little thing I learn about it. I love the people, I love the writing, I love the comments, I love the reading, I love the projects. I even love the spam. O how I love the spam.

I can now add a new thing I love about blogging. Meeting the people face-to-face is wonderful. In the past several months, I have Skyped with L’Eric and Never Contrary, two of my favorite WordPressers. Both times, I put voices and faces with the words on the screen and was filled with warmth. The humans behind the blogs exceeded their online personae, and that’s saying a lot. They are real. Not only are they not scary, they are as delightful and smart and interesting as they appear in their blogging.

But there was still that screen involved. We find a lot of safety in our screens. Even when people leave nasty comments, we have the fail-safe of the delete button. We still remember that those things were said, but pressing delete is neat and tidy. The screen is good, but it’s not always as satisfying as we want it to be. Meeting a person in the reality of life gives us a sensory experience that can’t be matched.

I have been reading her blog since right before her Lucy was born, so when I held Lucy in my arms while Kelly unfurled a blanket for her to sit on, it was one of those Oprah-esque fully circle moments. My people met her people and it was so satisfying and fun. Her Emily climbed a tree at the co-op where we met while she, B, and I held our babies and gushed about the Internet and why we love this place. Scratch that. B didn’t gush; I don’t think he’s capable of doing so, but he had a time that leaned on the great side, so we’ll take that. As we made the longish drive home that afternoon, his approval of my online and now real friend came through loud and clear:

“You know who Kelly reminds me of?”

“No, who?”

“She reminds me of OG.” OG is one of our friends from Korea who is charismatic and exuberant. She fills the room with the bestest of energy whenever she walks in. She’s passionate and smart and she loves hard. The same can be said of Kelly.

A few minutes passed. I took a nap in the backseat of the car with C and when I woke, B had another comment.

“So, what does Kelly blog about?”

The fact that he asked this at all was a Big Deal. B likes all y’all alright because he knows I love you, but his world of the Internet is very different from my own. There’s not a lot of overlap between mom blogging on WordPress and publishing flarf poetry on Tumblr. But he asked. Kelly is apparently that bridge. She intrigued him, and that’s another not-small thing.

“She writes about being a mom and her life but her words are just delicious. She is a Mom on Fire.”

And she is. Kelly is the best of the web.

The reason I say all this is because in her specialness, Kelly is what I know you all are like. We are in good company with each other. Amidst the noise of the Internet, we have all found our ways towards each other, and that leaves me extremely grateful.

Photography credit goes to Emily, Kelly’s big girl. Wee Cee was zonked out in the background.

Do you and Ben ever talk about the similarities between your lives now and when you were in Korea? That’s what I thought about when you mentioned Ben’s remarks after meeting your new friend. Going into new, unfamiliar worlds together. That sort of thing.

That’s awesome. And I promise to stop using “awesome” soon, but my kids think I’m a massive dork when I say things like “sweet” (which I’m sure is not longer cool). I may start using Spanish, ’cause they don’t speak it and can’t tell I’m a dork in Spanish when I say, “Muy suave.”

Y’all are so cute. I’m almost inspired to starting using pictures of my family…almost. That’s a big hurdle for me.

Let’s just say that If I lived anywhere near the east coast, I would be visiting everyone all the time. I am so intrigued by meeting bloggers in real life but I don’t know if I will ever get the chance! It’s awesome that you guys got to meet for real and spend time together. My husband sounds like B. But maybe worse. Like, the minute I say a blogger’s name he’s like “uhghgh omg stoppp” so yeah, that’s fun.

I am about 1,000 times worse than my husband when he talks about all the people he blogs with. I thought I had gotten really, really good at nodding and making it look like I was paying attention to what he was saying, and then the other day he completely called me out on not listening to him. Oops.

Do you and your mom talk about all of us when you get together or am I just flattering myself by thinking that you do?

Dude! WordPress tour sounds awesome! Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but I have a bizarre Bob Dylan post in the works that I am getting so excited about and I think of you whenever I sit down to work on it ;)

SO JEALOUS. One day I am going to win the lottery and buy everyone I follow a plane ticket to somewhere incredible and we are all going to fight over who gets to sit next to Le Clown while we also break WordPress by simultaneously blogging about the meeting.

What a nice post. I haven’t met anyone but there are several that I think I would get along with in real life. I guess you wouldn’t have written this post if it had gone badly but that would be almost more interesting. :)

I know Kelly myself. We used to work together years ago and she was a bridesmaid in my wedding. LOVE HER!!! She is as real as she comes off in her blog. She is funny, witty, and would do anything in the world for her friends. We haven’t seen each other in a few years but I still love her to pieces. We have always said that she and I don’t know why we like each other so much….back when we became friends, she was single with no kids, I was a single mom of one (think soccer mom and Girl Scout leader) and we really had nothing in common….but we just clicked.

I think it’s great when you meet someone in real life you’ve clicked with for years on here. Not that I have or anything, I live near a few people I know from WP but I can only hide behind their bins in secret.

I can feel your excitement jumping out at me from the screen. It’s always nice to meet someone you feel that you have created a great bond with from the internet. I have not met any fellow bloggers but I have met a couple of people from different parts of the webs I inhabit. They have all been good experiences…except that one time.

I spent Saturday with a fellow blogger. It was our second meeting and I was struck by how much we have in common. Also we laughed a lot! Read all about it some time this week. Glad to see your meet up was such a blast!

Is IRL a thing or did you just make that up? This is a great post and I hope to meet a blogger or two some day. It’s funny how the people in my world know who my different blogger pals are. This is such a great community.

IRL is a real thing. I like to sprinkle it around sometimes because it makes me look cutting edge. It is indeed a great community. One of these days I hope we finally get to go to Portland because then I can meet you and Jen.

If that’s the case, I have some questions for you:
1) Is it noisy in there when I type? How about if I’m really, really excited?
2) How do you fit in there? Is it cramped, or is it more like that CGI Saturday morning cartoon from the 90s?
3) How did you get out of the computer?

[…] and raised in Memphis, TN, Emily is a gentle person who is funny, loves to write, and yearns for connection in a way that has served her well in her blogging career. When she writes about trying to blog, her […]